When a flock of Canada geese collided with US Airways flight 1549,
forcing Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger to ditch the plane in the Hudson River
in 2009, the threat that wildlife poses to aviators exploded onto the
national stage.

Since then, ridding New Jersey’s airport runways of animals has become
daily business for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Since
2008, the agency has killed nearly 6,000 animals, mainly birds, that have
congregated in areas it deemed to be a threat to aircraft safety at Newark
Liberty International and Teterboro airports.

The problem is, these efforts are having no significant impact. The
birds, it seems, don’t know that they are supposed to be scared away.

An analysis of Port Authority and Federal Aviation Administration data by
The Star-Ledger shows that though the agency has expanded its wildlife
management program considerably since 2009, wildlife collisions with
aircraft at New Jersey airports have not declined.

Though most wildlife strikes do not cause any issue, several planes
arriving or departing from New Jersey airports typically do sustain damage
each year.

An aircraft at one of the Port Authority’s New Jersey airports collides
with an animal, typically a bird, about once every two days — a figure that
has remained virtually unchanged every year since 2008, the year before the
Flight 1549 crash.

During that time, however, the number of animals — from European
starlings to foxes to the threatened American kestrel — killed by the Port
Authority has skyrocketed. In Newark, for example, just 10 animals were
killed by the agency in 2008, while 1,267 were killed two years later.

“It’s a response to an oversensitive issue with respect to the public,”
said David Mizrahi, vice president for research and monitoring at the New
Jersey Audubon Society. “People want to understand that they’re out there
doing something. But there are several ways to get at the wildlife hazard
problem. I think airfields are a little slow on the uptake in coming around
to them.”

The Port Authority asserts that the vast majority of animals are
relocated through nonlethal means and lethal measures are generally used
only when all other means have been exhausted.

“The safety of more than 110 million passengers using Port Authority
airports annually is the agency’s highest aviation priority,” Port Authority
spokesman Ron Marsico said in a statement. “The Port Authority has wildlife
biologists on staff, and last year approximately 95 percent of wildlife
mitigation efforts at the agency’s airports involved nonlethal measures.
Nonlethal means are employed where possible to keep wildlife from
endangering the lives of passengers and crews, including use of
pyrotechnics, other loud noises and habitat management like the reduction of
tall grass and standing water to help keep birds and animals away.”

Issue of safety

It’s an issue that even some of the more ardent animal advocacy and
conservation groups are loath to criticize because it deals directly with
the public safety of millions.

“It’s the juxtaposition between human safety and wildlife safety, and
it’s a very difficult and fine line we walk,” Mizrahi said.

But the data still show that current wildlife management strategies
implemented in recent years around Port Authority-controlled airports have
been largely unsuccessful.

“It’s like if you have a swollen knee and you drain the fluid instead of
going after the cartilage,” said Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey
Sierra Club. “We tend to just look at the symptom instead of trying to
address the root cause.”

Tittel said more emphasis should be placed on making the areas
immediately around the airport less attractive to wildlife while building up
habitats outside an area deemed dangerous to aircraft.

“Just killing birds doesn’t mean you get rid of bird strikes,” he said.

European starlings, which are small but flock, are the most commonly
targeted animals in and around New Jersey airports, data show. Hundreds of
other larger birds, like geese and ducks, that pose a more immediate threat
to planes are also killed annually by the agency, typically with a firearm.

Mizrahi noted that each of the top five birds most often killed at New
Jersey airports are considered introduced species, or animals that are not
native to the area but do not necessarily have a negative impact on the
local ecosystem.

“If this wasn’t being handled in this way, people in New Jersey would be
out hunting them,” he said. “This is part of the reason why we’re not
engaging the issue so actively.”
Mammals, such as foxes, woodchucks, deer and muskrats, are also killed by
the agency should they pose a threat to inbound or outbound aircraft, Port
Authority data show.

Kestrel killed

An American kestrel, a threatened hawk in New Jersey, was killed by the
agency in 2012, but Marsico said it was only after other methods of removing
the bird proved unsuccessful.

“The American kestrel taken at Teterboro Airport was removed from the
runway safety area, adjacent to active runways, where the hawk posed an
immediate threat to aviation safety,” he said. “Nonlethal control efforts
were not effective and so lethal control was used to remove the hazard to
aviation. State and federal permit authorities were notified of this
action.”

The permitting process for the extermination of animals is complex and
convoluted in New Jersey. Various state and federal permits dictate how many
employees or contractors can be involved in the culling, how many of a given
species can be killed to even what gauge of shotgun can be used to carry out
the act.

Airports are generally built near water or as far away from the general
population as possible for safety, efficiency and quality-of-life reasons,
which often situates them near large wildlife habitats such as marshes and
waterways. Mizrahi said numerous species of birds find asphalt appealing as
well as the typically well-manicured grass that grows alongside runways,
making airports particularly attractive to certain kinds of wildlife.

John F. Kennedy International Airport, for example, is situated next to
Jamaica Bay, a major breeding ground for several species of birds. As a
result, the Port Authority’s wildlife control program at the airport is far
more expansive than at Newark or Teterboro. More than 42,000 animals have
been killed at JFK airport since 2008.

Seeking new solutions

There are signs, both locally and nationally that the aviation industry
is beginning to coalesce around the issue and strive for new solutions for
wildlife control.

Recently, the Port Authority has been working with groups like the New
York City chapter of the Audubon Society to relocate some species of birds,
such as certain hawks and owls. In December, the two groups worked together
to band and relocate several snowy owls, which have appeared in the region
in unusually high numbers this winter.

“They let us know when the trapping is happening,” said Susan Elbin, the
director of conservation at the New York City Audubon Society. “They’ve been
really good about that. It’s been a good experience.”

Still, Mizrahi isn’t confident civilian and military airfields will be
quick to change their policies.

“A very well-known aviation ecologist published a study on this very
issue at JFK in 1994. Twenty years later we’re still having this same
conversation,” he said. “It’s really difficult to move them off the mark.”

WESTCHESTER4GEESE is an adjunct of ANIMAL DEFENDERS OF WESTCHESTER.
We advocate against all forms of animal abuse and exploitation,
including hunting, experimentation, fur, circuses and rodeos
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